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chickens

There are days when I can feel my temper is frayed to the seams. When the children push every button they can, where I want to put CBeebies on at the start at the day and not turn it off until the kids are sparko. There are days when I just want to go back to work because it would undoubtably be easier than spending every hour of every day (and every night, given Medium’s habit of bed hopping into our bed) with three small children who want to absorb every cell in my body.

Today was not one of them.

Today was punctuated by bursts of belly laughs. Mainly, mine. We started with a lovely playdate. The pre-school mums really are a lovely bunch. Medium took strongly to one of our host’s toys and I feared a meltdown when we left to go home, but she coped well and I now know what to buy her for Christmas. Father Christmas can thank me later.

As we busied ourselves at home, Big surprised me by picking up one of our fabulous chickens. Now these birds are tame, but to allow a four-year-old to carry them like a handbag doesn’t do anything to dispel the myth that chickens really are stupid.

Despite the rather rough handling, Mrs Huggins, our Moran cross, happily sat on Big’s lap outside in the sun. She was less keen when Medium grabbed her by the throat and expressed her love with a little squeeze. Still, she stayed on Big’s lap.

Medium and I busied ourselves on the trampoline and when I turned around, Big and Mrs Huggins had disappeared. Assuming she’d got bored, I didn’t think anything of it. Until I walked indoors and found her sitting on the sofa, chicken on her lap, watching CBeebies. Not something you see every day.

Medium, at two-and-two-months, is speaking fairly early. Weirdly, with a cockney accent. I don’t have BBC diction, but my mum would’ve rapped me on the knuckles for dropping my Hs and Ts. I have no idea where she’s picked up this accent – too much EastEnders in utero maybe.

She’s made me smile by running around the garden announcing that she’d “Dun a blow orff’ and introducing me to “‘Orse, innit.” (To the uninitiated, that translates as “Horse, isn’t it.”)

The day ended with Big asking if she could ‘do a show’. This show consisted of her singing the chorus of ‘Let It Go’ while running around the room with Little’s baby gym wrapped around her waist. I feel slightly dazed.

So today was one of those days where my temper wasn’t frayed, no buttons were pushed and I definitely, definitely don’t want to go back to work. Those girls? They’re my world.